HEART2HEART

chapter 7: the smoothie incident

"Sunbae-nim, this is for you."

Jungkook handed Jieun a berry smoothie later that day before the meeting, after noticing that she hadn't left her table at all during lunch hour. In response, Jieun glanced up at him with a blank look on her face. Jungkook could clearly feel her discomfort, and upon noticing a very oblivious victim who was sipping happily on his own smoothie right next to him, Jungkook made a quick judgement call in that moment to tell a lie - a white lie.

"Taehyung hyung bought it for you."

"Huh? Me?" Taehyung furrowed his eyebrows as he glanced at Jungkook, his straw still in his gaping mouth. "I... I bought it for her?"

Jungkook winked at him, praying hard that he'd get the hint.

"Huh? Why is your eye twitching like that?"

What was Jungkook even expecting? He nudged Taehyung hard in the ribcage.

"Ow- yes!" Taehyung winced and burst into laughter at the same time, putting his smoothie cup down with great force as he stomped on Jungkook's foot under the table. "Yes, I remember now! Yes, yes. I bought this smoothie for you, Jieun-ssi."

Jungkook gave him a look.

"Because I realised that you didn't have lunch..." Taehyung fixated his eyes on Jungkook, as if his face had a script for him to recite from. "So... I felt that maybe a smoothie would be good for you. I thought of coffee too, but a smoothie is more nutritious and filling, you see. Coffee's not good for an empty stomach. Yes."

Jungkook gave Taehyung a subtle nod of approval as he finally took his seat next to Jieun at the conference table.

"It's not good to skip lunch so often," Taehyung carried on as he took his seat next to Jungkook, adjusting his shirt collar as he picked up his smoothie once more. "Smoothies are extremely good for gut and overall health, and that's exactly why I got myself one as well. Am I right, Jungkook-ssi?"

Jungkook return a stomp on Taehyung's foot, knowing full well that he was able to say all this, not because all these thoughts were coming to his head there and then, but because these were the exact words Jungkook had naggily bombarded him with as he bought the smoothie for Jieun earlier that day during lunch. Taehyung had retorted once more not to bother, but Jungkook had refused to listen.

"Tears in my eyes~" Taehyung whimpered as he tried to contain the pain in his foot while chewing on his straw. "-because I would never want my dear staff to be in poor health, you know what I mean? Stay healthy and robust, everybody!"

Jieun had pretty much no choice but to accept the smoothie at this point.

"Thank you... bujang-nim."

In spite of who she was addressing, Jieun eyes were focused on Jungkook instead of Taehyung, and Jungkook knew she knew. He returned her a small nod, and the two reached another mutual understanding once more.

"Sorry, sorry, everybody, hi!" Jennie burst into the room at that moment, arriving 5 minutes later than the timing that was scheduled. "Good afternoon, sorry about the delay, I was caught in another meeting..."

Everyone in the room quietened down and paid attention to Jennie.

"But yeah, I'm sure you guys all know what today's meeting is for...?" Jennie took a seat at the head of the table very charismatically. "Any one of you not sure about what's going on, please raise your hands-"

Jungkook scanned the room, and no one in the conference room raised their hands.

"Splendid-" Jennie smiled as she opened up the folder in front of her. "Splendid, splendid, splendid. Okay, first and foremost, today, I'd like to thank all of you for your hard work all this while. We launched Project Heart2Heart around 2 years ago, and built up the algorithm from scratch, slowly, over the years. I'm very proud of what we have achieved so far and would like to emphasise again that all this would not have been possible without each and every single one of you. Can we take a moment to put our hands together to commemorate all the time and effort you guys have put into this project?"